I haven't used a mac since the Apple II, so i may be out of the loop. I really like PCs, mainly for the variety of hardware. You can really spec out the machine for the the sort of tasks you are going to do with it, either bare minimum or optimized for certain applications. The software selection is huge, which is why some people end up with hardware software compatibility issues. As far as viruses and spyware goes, I have always been able to keep my systems clean. I am a blood and guts computer guy, I like to tweak my system for the best performance, even if I don't have the newest hardware. I don't know about macs, but the last time I used one there was very little tweaking you could do to it.